Hello! Gosh, that sweater sure suits you! How nice is the colder weather so we can get out all our woolies? We're been beavering away here at the Pop Up Playground headquarters plotting and planning and designing and playing and we've got some things to share! Read on, MacPlayfuls!

Upcoming events...

Our coming playtests

We're running three playtests over the next three months - come play the newest of the new games by Pop Up Playground.

25th May, 22nd June, 27th July
10 am - 5pm

310-314 Church Street, Richmond.

Come play and help us finish these games off.

Email us at rabbithole@popupplayground.com.au to let us know you're coming, or to let us know if you're interested in bringing one of your own games to try out on our playful gathering.

Also, we'll gladly receive any gold coin donations to help us pay for the space hire.

W00t - Copenhagen Festival of Play

In Copenhagen on May 25th and 26th the Copenhagen Games Collective is running their games festival, w00t. Our intrepid, adventurer, runner and games academic Chad Toprak will be over there presenting a talk - Exertion Games and Unconventional Play Spaces. He's also Pop Up Playground's official w00t representative and is running a few of our games for us while he's there - Pudding Lane, Hummingbirdman Rally and Pop Up Playground's School of Modern Dance.

We're really excited about this (we wish we could be there too), we can't wait to see the photos!

Speaking of photos, that's Chad himself about to launch his Hummingbirdman at Fresh Air earlier this year and the photo was taken by the ever talented Sarah Walker

Game runner Kevin Turner about to make an arrest in The Gobstopper Job from Fresh Air, '13

Want to help out?

We're always looking for new people to help us make and run games, new players to play the games, new volunteers to help make our events run smoothly and as always, new games to play.

Want to help us out?

If you'd like to help run games or events, if you're interested in learning more about game design, if you'd like to help us run the box office, information booth or are just a willing volunteer, we'd love to hear from you! Email us using the buttons on the right and introduce yourself!

Catching up...

UNSW workshop

A couple of Saturdays ago, the awesome Malcolm Ryan from the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW flew Pop Up Playground up to run a workshop for his game design students and other interested people. People came from as far as Canberra and London to attend*!

We ran them through some games, we chatted about theory, we debuted a new Constructive Play that changed titles several times over the afternoon (currently called Table Town) and we generally had a lovely time. We'd like to thank Malcolm and the School of Computer Science and Engineering for organising and hosting this workshop!

The workshop attendees are keen to keep the games discussion going up there, so if you're from around the Sydney area and want to get in touch with them, drop us a line and we'll pass your details on.

*Actually, the UK team behind The Gobstopper Job, Mary Hamilton and Grant Howett, just happened to have flown into Sydney that morning and, like troopers, staggered in to play and share their games knowledge after enduring the 24 hour flight.

CPX workshop

Creeping ever closer...

About a week ago, on an early Tuesday morning, we were honoured to run a fun hour and a half for the Creative Performance Exchange (CPX). We played a number of our old favourites, then debuted a new game called The Ministry of High Weirdness, in which Minsters for Chaotic Organization, Odd Socks, Non-Permanent Textas and Tweeting Incessantly all attempted to get weirder and weirder bills passed. Debate on the floor was so passionate that we were issued with a warning for noise from the building managers!

Hamish Curry from CPX wrote about his experience at the workshop, which you can read here. We had a great time at the CPX and hope to come play again soon.